From Business to Belief Systems: Breaking Down the Roles of Different Kinds of Coaches
Do you have a business coach? Do you know what one is and how it can help you? It was October, and I had just finished my Money Flow Experience three-day event.
Our participants were happy and relieved to finally know what to do in their businesses. One by one, they started to approach me and say things like:
“I wish I had known about you earlier. I didn’t know what a business coach really was.”
“There’s so much more to learn that I didn’t even realize.”
“I didn’t even know that I was running my business more like a hobby than a business.”
“I’m great at mindset, but I really need to learn more business skills.”
You see, I had explained things like measuring conversion rates, understanding the difference between offline and online marketing, and how to do and track sales conversations and what kind of revenue to expect. Some might call this nuts and bolts business skills.
I could tell that so many people were confused about the roles of different kinds of coaches. I’ve been coaching full-time for 15 years now, and I still see that confusion relatively often. So just in case you’re thinking of hiring a business coach this year, I’d love to clarify.
How do you choose a business coach, and what role do coaches play in your business?
Let’s start with a few definitions.
What is a Business Coach?
An experienced business coach is someone who helps you determine strategies in your business – things like what to offer, how much to charge, how to brand your business, or who your best customers are and where to find those customers.
This person can also help you figure out plan B when plan A doesn’t work, and helps you move out of stagnancy, confusion, or procrastination to keep growing your business.
“Experienced” is a keyword when it comes to business coaches because you want to find someone who has three areas of experience:
- Demonstrated monetary success in her own business
- Experience helping lots of clients with their businesses
- Training or schooling in business skills that have equipped them to work on different types of business structures
I would also suggest staying away from business coaches who instruct you in a “be-like-me” way – who only teach you how to build a business that looks like their own.
This usually occurs with business coaches who don’t have a lot of experience or training in business – oftentimes, their selling point is having built one successful business on their own. But the fact that someone has built one successful business model doesn’t mean that they can effectively teach multiple models.
I also believe that a good business coach should provide both training and coaching. They should train you on skills such as making sales, generating leads, hiring team members, etc., and coach you specifically on how to implement these skills in your business.
Business is a language. Just like with any language, you actually have to take the time to learn one skill at a time – and to do that, you need solid training.
For example, at Revenue Breakthrough, we have our RISE Business Academy, which teaches solid business training and provides individual coaching and mindset support.
What is a Mindset or Life Coach?
Mindset or Life coaches vary greatly in their skill sets and focuses. These are people who are awesome at giving you advice in all the areas of your life – far beyond business. They help you work through past upsets, create a different future, and shift your brain for the better.
What they generally don’t do is get down to the nuts and bolts of business, like teaching you which seven numbers you should be tracking, the eight ways you could grow your list, or exactly how to close during a sales conversation.
Mindset work is incredibly important to help you take action in your business. But please be careful here! I’ve met far too many business owners who were strong action-takers but were running in the wrong direction because they lacked a solid business strategy.
For example, at one of my last events, I met a spiritual healer whose coach had told her to take 60% off her sessions because she needed money fast. She ended up selling 50 sessions and losing money on every single one of them! She came to me desperate, exhausted, and wondering what had gone wrong.
I would have told her to limit the number of sessions she sold, made sure she wasn’t losing money on her price point, and created an upsell on all of the sessions. And that’s just for starters!
Every business owner needs to learn true business strategies and skills at some point in their businesses – and then combine the mindset piece to help keep them moving forward.
And for our last definition…
What is a Certification or Skills Training?
These are programs that help you build your skills. For a coach, it might look like a training program on how to deal with trauma with your clients. For a massage therapist, it might look like a continuing education class on a new method of massage that helps with weight loss.
These programs are incredibly attractive! The subject matter is amazing. The relationships you build in them are fun. But sometimes my clients get confused and say, “But Monica, If I take another certification and get better at my trade, then more people will hire me because I’ll get better.”
The only way more people will hire you is if you sell more and convert more – which means that the most important skills to improve are generating leads (marketing) and converting those leads (selling).
I totally believe in advancing your skill sets. I’m in a coach skillset training right now and it’s amazing! But if you haven’t learned how to sell and market, then you’ll end up spending the money on the certification and having no way to pay it back.
So What’s My Suggestion?
If you are at a day job right now and would like to take a certification or training program to build your skills so that you can have your own business – awesome!
Then, when you are done with your training program, hire a business coach to teach you the skills you need to know.
If you’re already in business but struggling with money or free time – hire a business coach who can help you build a business that supports an amazing lifestyle.
If you’re already in a business training program but find yourself procrastinating or feeling stuck, lonely, or blocked – a mindset, life, or spiritual coach could help you move forward fast.
And of course, I always believe in the AND – not the OR. Right now, I personally have a business coach and a spiritual/mindset coach, and I’m taking a certification. However, my cash flow allows that. In the beginning, I focused solely on hiring business coaches until I built a high cash flow business.
Wherever your training and coaching journey takes you, if you’d like to chat with me about how I may be able to help you with your business – please reach out to our team here.
Here’s to you creating an amazing support team and building a business that supports your dream life!
